Pastor Maceo Woods to Receive Ambassador Bobby Jones Legends Award

Maceo Woods Singers, ca. 1952 – Woods is front, center

By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog

Rev. Maceo L. Woods, founder and pastor of Christian Tabernacle Church in Chicago and gospel recording artist for more than sixty years, will be honored at the 2014 Stellar Awards with the Ambassador Bobby Jones Legends Award.

Hailing from Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood, Woods has a long and storied history in the gospel music industry.  His organ instrumental version of “Amazing Grace” remains one of the best selling gospel instrumental records of all time.  The Maceo Woods Singers’ “Never Grow Old,” featuring a solo by Civil Rights leader Rev. Billy Kyles, was said to inspire Aretha Franklin’s own.  The Christian Tabernacle Concert Choir has entertained and inspired congregations for more than fifty years, with such leading lights as Doris Sykes, Pearl McCombs, and George Jordan.

Woods is a consummate organist; people remember how he would conclude a piece and proceed to walk around the organ, dusting it off, while the last note hung in the air.

When Woods organized a gospel program in Chicago with a ticket price that far exceeded the going rate for that time, naysayers said it wouldn’t work.  Not only did it work: the house was filled.  Today, the “Gospel Supreme” concert continues to delight listeners with traditional gospel music sung in the classic Chicago style.

The Black Gospel Blog congratulates Rev. Woods on this honor and can think of no one more deserving. Woods will receive his honor at the Stellar Awards main event on Saturday, January 18, 2014, in Nashville, Tennessee.  www.thestellarawards.com

For more information about the life and music of Pastor Maceo Woods, read his book, A Graceful Journey, written with Pastor Mack Mason.